Billy Crudup - almost famous

'Every time I do a movie I think it's going to be a huge hit,' says Charlotte Gray star, Billy Crudup.

We do love an optimist but given that this is the man who turned turned down the chance to audition for the Leonardo di Caprio role in Titanic, you have to wonder about his career choices.

Because he has tended to opt for arthouse movies which he finds interesting, huge hits have proved hard to come by for this smoulderingly handsome actor.

But his new film, an adaptation of Sebastian Faulks's novel set in the Second World War, could be set to change all that.

Crudup plays Julien, a member of the French Resistance, who becomes romantically involved with the eponymous heroine played by Cate Blanchett, a Scottish nurse who has volunteered to go undercover in France.

It is an old-style leading man role - romantic, rugged, dashing - guaranteed to set female pulses racing. And it might just be Crudup's breakthrough.

The 33-year-old New Yorker first came to the attention of filmgoers with a substantial role in the revenge drama Sleepers in 1996, in which he played alongside Brad Pitt, Robert de Niro and Kevin Bacon.

A smaller role in Woody Allen's 1996 film Everyone Says I Love You followed, but his determination to find challenging work rather than Hollywood hits led him to appear in indie movies such as Jesus' Son and Snitch, which enjoyed limited success at the box office.

In 2000 he played a promising young politician haunted by the death of his wife in Waking The Dead and we last saw him in the aptly titled Almost Famous in which he played the charismatic leader of a rock band. The film won appreciative reviews but only relatively small audiences.

However Charlotte Gray, released this Friday, seems certain to further swell the ranks of his growing female fan base.

Bad news though - he has been with his girlfriend, actress Mary-Louise Parker, since 1996.

Check our Movies channel this week for reviews of Charlotte Gray

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